Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Iran

Official Claims Iran Can 'Mass Produce' Centrifuges

Ali Akbar Velayati (file photo) (ITAR-TASS)

May 2, 2007 -- An foreign affairs adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Iran is capable of the "mass production" of centrifuges used for enriching uranium.

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May 02, 2007

Ali Akbar Velayati made the comment in an interview published in the conservative "Jomhuri-yi Islami" newspaper.

The UN Security Council has approved two rounds of sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is intended for peaceful purposes.

U.S. and some other Western officials have accused Iran of covertly seeking to possess nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has criticized Iran for a lack of disclosure in the past and says it has not seen sufficient evidence to confirm that Tehran's nuclear efforts have no military component.

(Reuters)

FURTHER READING
Big Claims In April Iran announced it had begun "industrial scale" uranium enrichment and told the international community to accept this "new reality." more	Inside Bushehr Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant is more than 90 percent completed. more

Talking Technical

A control panel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant (Fars)

CASCADES AND CENTRIFUGES: Experts and pundits alike continue to debate the goals and status of Iran's nuclear program. It remains unclear whether the program is, as Tehran insists, a purely peaceful enegy project or, as the United States claims, part of an effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
On June 7, 2006, RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel spoke with nuclear expert Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden to help sort through some of the technical issues involved. "[Natanz] will be quite a large plant," Kile said. "There will be about 50,000 centrifuges and how much enriched uranium that can produce [is] hard to say because the efficiency of the centrifuges is not really known yet. But it would clearly be enough to be able to produce enough [highly-enriched uranium] for a nuclear weapon in fairly short order, if that's the route that they chose to go...." (more)

Tehran Says It Is Working On Advanced Nuclear Fusion

Would Light-Water Reactor Suit Tehran's Needs?

Satellite Images Raise Questions About Iran's Nuclear Program

Centrifuges And Political Spin?

How Close Is Iran To Getting Nuclear Bomb?

Iran: The Worst-Case Scenarios

THE COMPLETE STORY: RFE/RL's complete coverage of controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program.

CHRONOLOGY

An annotated timeline of Iran's nuclear program.

Investigators work at the site where a vehicle exploded near the Israeli embassy in New Delhi.

Analyst: Suspected Iran Attacks A Sign Tehran Feeling The Pressure

(INTRO) Israel has blamed Iran for two bombings targeting its diplomats in India and Georgia this week, as well as for a botched bombing in Bangkok that Thai intelligence officials said were aimed at top Israeli diplomats. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran's "terrorist activities" have been exposed, but Iran has denied any involvement. RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari spoke to Juan Zarate, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and former Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism about the attacks and Iran's alleged role. More

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad (center) looks on as scientists unveil a fuel rod at the Tehran Research Reactor.

Iranian Nuke Still One-To-Three Years Away, Says Expert

Iran on announced on February 15 that it has installed its first domestically produced nuclear fuel rods in a reactor in Tehran. Tehran also announced that it activated a new generation of centrifuges at its Natanz nuclear facility. RFE/RL spoke with nuclear physicist Frank Barnaby about what the advances reveal regarding Iran's uranium enrichment abilities, which Western countries allege are aimed at secretly building a nuclear weapon. More

Iran has stepped up its pressure on activists using the Internet

Iranian Activists, Journalists Receive Threatening E-mails

A number of Iranian activists and journalists based inside and outside the country have told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda they have been threatened in anonymous e-mails. More